Lebanese Institutions and Arab Nationalism

The Lebanon is part of the Arab world: at the same time it belongs to the region of the Mediterranean. It is, as it were, a bridge stretching between the steppe and the sea, between the East and the West: in that area and amongst the peoples inhabiting it, it has a very special and peculiar place. The peaceful coexistence and mutual dependence of communities of different faiths that make up the whole have imprinted distinctive features on the face of the Lebanon as we see it, and account in large measure for the equilibrium of its constitutional institutions1 which, in regulating Islamic and Christian elements and welding them into a community, have, by that same token, brought the relations of the Lebanon with Arabism into harmony.2 My purpose here is to demonstrate how the structure of the modem Lebanese state has been shaped and adapted to suit these Muslim and Arab factors, and then to point out briefly the stresses to which the framework of the state has been subject; further, to draw attention to the suggestions made in the light of that experience that another look should be taken at that equilibrium and at the instruments of government on which it rests. As far back as the fourteenth century, the Ma'an and Shehab dynasties made the Mamelukes and later the Ottomans recognize the quasi-independence of their Emirate which, in the 'Mountain

Ancient history · Harmony (color · Independence (probability theory · Islam · Muslim community · Nationalism · Peaceful coexistence · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · State (computer science · History · Islamic Studies and History · Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies · Law · Middle East Politics and Society

• Lebanon

  Open Access•Mark Farha•Lebanon•2019

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